T. Jefferson Parker’s A Thousand Steps is the coming-of-age story of a Laguna Beach, California, boy who is largely having to do it all on his own. Matt’s father deserted the family six years earlier; his brother is a Vietnam tunnel rat; his mother seems determined to drown her own problems in booze and drugs; and his only sister has just been kidnapped. Matt may be the youngest member of his family, but he is smart enough to know that he is the only hope is sister has now.
It’s 1968 and Laguna Beach is attracting naive dropouts and cynical drug pushers from all over the country. Idiots like Timothy Leary are taking advantage of the new drug culture’s chaos to make themselves famous and rich at the expense of anyone and everyone they can exploit - and it seems that way too many people in Laguna Beach are happy enough to be exploited. Those protesting the justifiably unpopular war in Vietnam make it even easier for the unscrupulous to make a quick buck from all the turmoil. Right in the middle of all of this, Jasmine, Matt’s sister, disappears and no one seems overly concerned about that other than sixteen-year-old Matt, who decides to find his sister on his own if he has to.
Tied down by a daily paper route that is his only source of income, and never sure where his next meal is coming from, Matt still manages to spend his every spare moment in search of his sister, a search that eventually attracts the attention of the Laguna Beach police. The police realize that Matt gets around, and one of them wants to turn him into an informer while another, more sympathetic, cop encourages Matt to keep doing what he’s doing because it is Jasmine’s best chance at being found alive. The boy is in so far over his head, though, that he will be lucky to survive the next few days himself.
Bottom Line: A Thousand Steps makes for a good coming-of-age story, but its setting is really the novel’s strongest point. Parker vividly captures a place, and a time, in American history that was every bit as ugly as it is memorable, a period that changed the country forever. For readers who don’t remember living through those days themselves, A Thousand Steps is a little like jumping on a time machine and traveling back to the counterculture of the late sixties.
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| T. Jefferson Parker |
Review Copy provided by Publisher. A Thousand Steps will be released on January 11, 2022.
The cover is so vivid, it really caught my eye. Is that supposed to be the sister, depicted?
ReplyDeleteIn a way, it is the sister because she had the generic look of teen girls from the sixties. Parker spends some time describing that look, so I have a feeling that the cover depicts more a type than an individual.
DeleteThe sixties and the seventies are probably my least favorite time period to read about...that and ancient Rome. :)
ReplyDeleteI find it irritating sometimes to read about those days, too. 1968 is the year I went into the military, so I was a complete opposite of those who lost themselves in the drug culture of those years. Was even briefly in a riot control unit especially prepared to handle demonstrations that got out of hand. Yep...those were NOT the days.
DeleteThe '60s and '70s were certainly a fraught period in our history and it seems that Parker has done a very good job of depicting them. The book does sound interesting and Matts seems to be a very sympathetic character.
ReplyDeleteParker does a terrific job re-creating that period of time. Of course, the California scene was probably the most out of control one in the whole culture in those days, so most of us who lived the sixties really never saw anything quite like what Parker describes here.
DeleteMatt is a good character, one that is easy to like and root for. Sadly, his parents aren't even close to doing that. His siblings have major problems, too...and growing up the way they did, who can blame them.
That looks like a cover from the late 60s (obviously). I had a crochet book with Peter Max illustrations similar to that.
ReplyDeleteThe story sounds interesting. I was still in Alabama in 1968, not yet out of college.
I have, unread, California Girl by this author, also set in the 60s. I should try that. Have you read anything else by T. Jefferson Parker?
That cover does remind me of Peter Max art now that you mention it. I imagine that's not an accident.
ReplyDeleteThe only other Parker books I've read are: Little Saigon, The Renegades, and Full Measure. I remember being suitably impressed by each of them that I always look at his books when I run across them anywhere.
It does seem like a good setting. I spent August 1976 & 1977 in Laguna Beach with family. Fun times at the beach for a kid. It was at the same time in 1977 that Elvis Presley & then Groucho Marx passed away, which left an impression. Not sure what the beach was like in the late '60s, but I imagine a hippy vibe. The character Matt seems to have an uphill battle ...
ReplyDeleteI tend to have some difficulty taking that whole era very seriously even though it happened in my late teens and early twenties. It just all seemed silly to me. But that's just me; I admit my bias readily when it comes to those days. And it's kind of funny because it had nothing to do with politics, religion, etc. I suppose I was a cynic even at that young age.
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